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Well-Known Member
I'll start by acknowledging that this will immediately fall into the category of snake oil for a lot of people. I'm not going to deny that. Honestly, even after reading about it, the science of why this tweak works still doesn't really make sense to me. I went in skeptical, but walked away impressed, so I wanted to share that experience.
The idea is simple enough. Use a heavy(ish) metal on a sharp point to help remove mechanical vibrations. There is also a focus on materials, and in some cases cone geometry to create effective grounding. We see this on speakers, some racks, and some gear. This is in the category of vibration control that we typically see addressed in 3 different ways - dampening, high mass, and grounding. And my focus today will obviously be on grounding. If you'd like some light reading on the grounding principle, I have a handy little article for you here. And for those already ready to tweak away, the Audio Points we used in the testing below are expensive when you think about them as cones of brass, but reasonable when you think about higher end cables and other tweaks. It's all about system balance. I'm certainly not going to advocate for someone spending $300+ on Audio Points to be placed under a UTurn and a Mani. It would be interesting, but I think you'd get a bigger bang elsewhere. This is a tweak. It's squeezing out the last bits of what your system can do because the next jump is exponential financially. So keep that in mind if you read on.
This test wasn't conducted in my system, but it was impressive enough that I will likely be adding this to my long term progressive upgrade plans. The changes I experienced in our test system were impressive enough to move that direction. I have heard multiple systems which use the Star Sound racks. They look cool, but my oh my are they expensive. And I never got to A/B test those racks with anything else, so hard to make a real judgement other than the systems they were used in sounded good. My first A/B test with these products was in my system using the Star Sound Platter Ground in place of my MoFi heavy weight. I've written about this in other threads, and while I do continue to prefer the Platter Ground's slightly more open sound, the difference is not monumental. I would suggest the Platter ground over the MoFi if you're looking at something new, but I wouldn't suggest selling your MoFi weight just to get the platter ground. We're talking about small differences here. We also experimented with Audio Points under the turntable and amp. But we didn't really get these dialed in, and I wasn't immediately as wowed by those.
So fast forward, and after talking more with my dealer and some friends in the audio world, we are able to arrange a bit of a larger scale test as my friend is considering going down the rabbit hole for potential review purposes. The dealer insist to really get the full effect of the audio points, you need them under each component in the chain. I'm still skeptical, but curious because I trust his ear. So we find ourselves in a testing situation with a friends system. To really drive this point home, we are using a fully solid state, digital system for this test. This 100% should not work in my mind. Even after reading about the mechanical grounding principle, I just don't see how little brass spikes are going to improve a fully digital and solid state system. Mind you, this system is already sitting on a Solid Steel rack, so the principles of rigidity and mass are already in place.
To start the experiment, we listened to the system with all the audio points in place. We have 3 points under each piece in the chain: amp, DAC and CD transport. I should also mention this is a pretty high end system. Total retail of the gear we used was around $25K for speakers and components, plus the cost of high end cables, the rack, and of course the audio points. We get to listening and find a few tracks we want to hone in on. We ended up really focusing on "Black Mambo" by The Glass Animals because it has a good use of space, deep bass, and good amount of high end details between the drum snaps and bells.
Step 1 - we remove the points from the amp only. This was probably the biggest difference of the day. Bass was much muddier, and the overall soundstage just collapsed. Now please, don't get me wrong. The system still sounds fantastic. But it does sound more closed in without the points in place. Interesting, and unexpected. I'm excited to see what happens next.
Step 2 - Audio points are put back in place on the amp, and removed from the dac. I was thinking this would make no difference at all. I figured a dac doesn't use a load of power, this dac already has a good transformer, it's solid state computer processing. How in TF is this ever going to make a difference? As far as how the science work, I'm baffled. This absolutely still does not compute in my brain. But I know what I heard, and I was shocked. We experienced an immediate drop off in detail. Especially high end detail. The whole sound wasn't quite as refined. Bass also didn't slam as hard, but it felt easier to pin point. It wasn't as much as part of the mass filling of the room, but more coming from a specific space in the soundstage. Again, I'm am flat out confused about exactly why this made a difference, but it was surprising how big of a difference this made. Not quite as big as the amp, but still very significant.
Step 3 - On to the CD player. Points are back in place on the amp and dac, but now removed from the CD player. After experiencing the differences on the amp and dac, I'm thinking the transport is going to make the biggest difference. I mean this is the the first piece that has actually spinning and moving parts. This should be the the thing vibrating the most. Turns out, I was wrong again. While we still heard differences here, mostly in the high end detail, I think the CD player has the lowest impact from the audio points. Didn't sound bad either way, but if you're really nit picking, I would say the high end was a little more clear and detailed with the points in place. But if you had to hold off on one part of this system, I would put the points here last.
So all in all, I'm impressed. Quite impressed. And confused, but I'll blame that more on my lack of engineering knowledge than anything else. I'd put this tweak up there with cables as far as importance. If you're impressed with a new amp and speakers, maybe consider cables AND mechanical grounding next. They look a little odd, but the sound was there. I'm now very curious to get some points under my TT, phono, and amp to see if these effects carry over to the analog domain. And to my slightly more midrange gear. I've been impressed with the Platter Ground, and hopefully at some point I can be even more impressed with Audio Points throughout my system.
The idea is simple enough. Use a heavy(ish) metal on a sharp point to help remove mechanical vibrations. There is also a focus on materials, and in some cases cone geometry to create effective grounding. We see this on speakers, some racks, and some gear. This is in the category of vibration control that we typically see addressed in 3 different ways - dampening, high mass, and grounding. And my focus today will obviously be on grounding. If you'd like some light reading on the grounding principle, I have a handy little article for you here. And for those already ready to tweak away, the Audio Points we used in the testing below are expensive when you think about them as cones of brass, but reasonable when you think about higher end cables and other tweaks. It's all about system balance. I'm certainly not going to advocate for someone spending $300+ on Audio Points to be placed under a UTurn and a Mani. It would be interesting, but I think you'd get a bigger bang elsewhere. This is a tweak. It's squeezing out the last bits of what your system can do because the next jump is exponential financially. So keep that in mind if you read on.
This test wasn't conducted in my system, but it was impressive enough that I will likely be adding this to my long term progressive upgrade plans. The changes I experienced in our test system were impressive enough to move that direction. I have heard multiple systems which use the Star Sound racks. They look cool, but my oh my are they expensive. And I never got to A/B test those racks with anything else, so hard to make a real judgement other than the systems they were used in sounded good. My first A/B test with these products was in my system using the Star Sound Platter Ground in place of my MoFi heavy weight. I've written about this in other threads, and while I do continue to prefer the Platter Ground's slightly more open sound, the difference is not monumental. I would suggest the Platter ground over the MoFi if you're looking at something new, but I wouldn't suggest selling your MoFi weight just to get the platter ground. We're talking about small differences here. We also experimented with Audio Points under the turntable and amp. But we didn't really get these dialed in, and I wasn't immediately as wowed by those.
So fast forward, and after talking more with my dealer and some friends in the audio world, we are able to arrange a bit of a larger scale test as my friend is considering going down the rabbit hole for potential review purposes. The dealer insist to really get the full effect of the audio points, you need them under each component in the chain. I'm still skeptical, but curious because I trust his ear. So we find ourselves in a testing situation with a friends system. To really drive this point home, we are using a fully solid state, digital system for this test. This 100% should not work in my mind. Even after reading about the mechanical grounding principle, I just don't see how little brass spikes are going to improve a fully digital and solid state system. Mind you, this system is already sitting on a Solid Steel rack, so the principles of rigidity and mass are already in place.
To start the experiment, we listened to the system with all the audio points in place. We have 3 points under each piece in the chain: amp, DAC and CD transport. I should also mention this is a pretty high end system. Total retail of the gear we used was around $25K for speakers and components, plus the cost of high end cables, the rack, and of course the audio points. We get to listening and find a few tracks we want to hone in on. We ended up really focusing on "Black Mambo" by The Glass Animals because it has a good use of space, deep bass, and good amount of high end details between the drum snaps and bells.
Step 1 - we remove the points from the amp only. This was probably the biggest difference of the day. Bass was much muddier, and the overall soundstage just collapsed. Now please, don't get me wrong. The system still sounds fantastic. But it does sound more closed in without the points in place. Interesting, and unexpected. I'm excited to see what happens next.
Step 2 - Audio points are put back in place on the amp, and removed from the dac. I was thinking this would make no difference at all. I figured a dac doesn't use a load of power, this dac already has a good transformer, it's solid state computer processing. How in TF is this ever going to make a difference? As far as how the science work, I'm baffled. This absolutely still does not compute in my brain. But I know what I heard, and I was shocked. We experienced an immediate drop off in detail. Especially high end detail. The whole sound wasn't quite as refined. Bass also didn't slam as hard, but it felt easier to pin point. It wasn't as much as part of the mass filling of the room, but more coming from a specific space in the soundstage. Again, I'm am flat out confused about exactly why this made a difference, but it was surprising how big of a difference this made. Not quite as big as the amp, but still very significant.
Step 3 - On to the CD player. Points are back in place on the amp and dac, but now removed from the CD player. After experiencing the differences on the amp and dac, I'm thinking the transport is going to make the biggest difference. I mean this is the the first piece that has actually spinning and moving parts. This should be the the thing vibrating the most. Turns out, I was wrong again. While we still heard differences here, mostly in the high end detail, I think the CD player has the lowest impact from the audio points. Didn't sound bad either way, but if you're really nit picking, I would say the high end was a little more clear and detailed with the points in place. But if you had to hold off on one part of this system, I would put the points here last.
So all in all, I'm impressed. Quite impressed. And confused, but I'll blame that more on my lack of engineering knowledge than anything else. I'd put this tweak up there with cables as far as importance. If you're impressed with a new amp and speakers, maybe consider cables AND mechanical grounding next. They look a little odd, but the sound was there. I'm now very curious to get some points under my TT, phono, and amp to see if these effects carry over to the analog domain. And to my slightly more midrange gear. I've been impressed with the Platter Ground, and hopefully at some point I can be even more impressed with Audio Points throughout my system.